Sunday, March 27, 2011

Grotesque Chairs?

My sister was in my office the other day and felt the need to comment on my chair. Apparently it "makes a funny noise" and sits "on a weird angle." I took personal affront to this. It seemed just a bit insensitive, given my current status as woman/chair hybrid.

As any student or real estate agent knows, location is everything. You can't just sit anywhere, on any old thing. My chair is special. We commune with each other. It sits on a weird angle because I sit on a weird angle. It screams intermittently because it feels my existential pain.

I will admit that the humble office chair is not the most exciting of topics. However, ruminating on the subject more generally led me to wonder if it were possible for a chair to be grotesque? What would a grotesque chair look like?

Not sure about grotesque, but they are all very creative in their own way.

UPDATE:

As Hila so wisely pointed out in the comments, Homer Simpson invented the toilet chair. The Simpsons Wiki confirms that:

"The Lazy Man Toilet Seat is the toilet chair that Homer invented.

Homer conceived of the chair as a way of going to the toilet while watching TV instead of having to go upstairs to use the toilet there, which Homer described as "the hardest thing in the world." While most of the family viewed this invention (and most of Homer's other ones) as "awful," Bart liked the chair. He was about to use it ("Gangway! Gotta poop!") when Marge stopped him, saying that she didn't want him going to the bathroom in the living room."